The luminance signal of a video recorder may be recorded by frequency modulation of a carrier, which may result in a frequency spectrum having, for example, a frequency range of 1.3 to 6 megahertz. During recording, the chrominance signal, which is a modulated color carrier signal, is converted by a mixing carrier to a modified color carrier signal, reduced in carrier frequency to about 627 kilohertz. The down-converted signal is recorded in the free or vacant frequency range below the frequency spectrum of the FM carrier that is modulated with the luminance signal. This vacant frequency range amounts to 1 megahertz, and thus a bandwidth of 0.5 megahertz is available for conventional color signal recording.
An improved recording system is known, such as Super VHS or S-VHS, in which a greater frequency modulation range and a greater total bandwidth of the spectrum is achieved by recording on magnetic tape having improved magnetic film characteristics and by using a greater magnetizing current for the FM carrier. By means of this system, the baseband bandwidth of the recorded luminance signal is increased to about 5 megahertz, and, in addition, the signal-to-noise ratio is increased.
The bandwidth of the recorded color signals remains the same for the S-VHS system, because, for reasons of compatibility, only the vacant frequency range of 0 to 1.2 megahertz below the frequency spectrum of the FM carrier is available for recording the color carrier. This has the disadvantage that the sharpness or definition and the signal-to-noise ratio for the recorded color signals have not been improved.
A feature of the invention, therefore, is to improve the bandwidth of video signals, such as color signals, and thus improve the quality of reproduction in a video recorder, without having to increase the available frequency range outside the frequency band associated with the FM carrier.